


Part of Your World

by In_agony_and_ecstasy



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Fantasy, Fluff, M/M, Mermaid!Marco, Ocean, SO MUCH FLUFF, Swimmer!Jean, Swimming, mermaid au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-20
Updated: 2016-01-08
Packaged: 2018-04-22 12:15:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4834991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/In_agony_and_ecstasy/pseuds/In_agony_and_ecstasy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jean nearly drowns in the ocean one day swimming alone. Just before he dies, he hears a musical voice, and then he wakes up on the beach accompanied by a stranger with a silver tail. His name is Marco, and he's fascinated with living on land as much as Jean is fascinated with living under water.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

At the very brink of dawn, I’d jumped out of bed, yanking on my wetsuit and running out the door without even eating breakfast. The nearest beach was less than a mile from my house, but I couldn’t search for him in such a public area, even if no one would be up yet. The trek up the coast to a rockier, secluded area lasted over twenty minutes. By the time I reached there, my calves were aching with the exertion and my chest was heaving, gasping for breath.

I’d rushed all the way here to sit and wait. Hurry up and stop. Because all I could do now, was plop down in the sandiest area I could find, catch my breath, and gaze toward the horizon.

Early June was the time of year the water’s temperature rose just enough to be bearable for human swimmers, but I’d been coming here every morning since May first, just in case. Marco had warned me that they didn’t plan the day they migrated back north. They felt an instinct, an urge deep inside of them to swim far away, and that kept them alive. Of course, they could swim in colder water than I could, and they could be showing up any day.

With each passing moment without seeing him, the longing in my chest grew. I hadn’t seen him since September.

Sometimes, I feared I had hallucinated seeing him, I’d made him up.

But I hadn’t hallucinated the scar on my chest.

Last summer, mid-July, I had driven out here before work. I didn’t normally swim that early in the day, and I never went swimming in the ocean without someone else there, or at the very least knowing that I’d gone swimming. But the night before I had been dumped, and I’d hardly gotten to swim in the ocean all year because we’d been having an especially rainy summer. So that morning, unwilling to risk that it would storm later that day, I’d driven out to the beach, telling myself I’d only take a dip. A twenty minute swim. I’d swim to the small island that was just visible from the beach, then back, and my itch to be enveloped in water would be satiated for a time.

I never made it to the island on my own. Halfway out, a violent shock shot through my chest and shoulder. I’d sucked in water. My arm had gone numb, I couldn’t breathe, and the water began to rise over my head as I sunk. The last thing I remembered was opening my eyes under the water, tasting the salt, and gazing at the sun through the surface of the water. The panic I first felt when I began to drown subsided with the pain from not being able to breath, and for a moment I just existed, hovering in the water.

I was going to die.

And I thought about the breakup, and thought about how I was twenty two years old and had yet to find a single person in the world who understood me, yet to find a single job that was worth putting myself through every day, yet to find a single passion that was worth living for besides swimming – which I could only do to a certain extent, despite spending every night of my life dreaming of the possibility of one day breathing under water and never returning to the surface – and I thought that somehow, that I was okay with death. In that moment, my world was below the surface and the last thing I’d ever see with my eyes was the waves rolling overhead.

And I was okay with that.

But, just as my eyes had begun to droop, and my head felt like it was going to explode, and I could no longer move any one of my limbs…

I heard singing. A melodic, haunting voice that enraptured me. If I hadn’t already been drowning, I would have never breathed again if it meant hearing that voice with more clarity.

Heaven. So I hadn’t, after all, done enough sinning in my life to not make it to heaven.

My eyes sealed shut, and I even smiled.

When I opened them again, the sky flew high above my head and the sand was soft underneath me. The waves crashed just out of sight. Water spray blew against my feet. Seagulls squawked and overgrown grass rustled between the rocks.

All at once, I gasped in all the air my lungs could hold and flung myself into a sitting position. The land in the distance was the beach I knew well, and all around me turquois water lapped at the shore. I was on the island.

“You were stung by a jelly fish,” someone said, in the most crystalline, musical voice I’d ever heard. His accent was thick, and I couldn’t place where it came from. “They’re such pests.”

My head swung around in search for my companion, when I noticed a man sprawled out on the very edge of the shore. Waves rolled over his brown skin as is freckles ate up the sun that shined so bright it was blinding.

“Don’t worry,” he said, turning to look at me with molten brown eyes, “I took care of it.”

Instinctually, I glanced at my chest. A massive, reddened scar ripped through my skin like the cracks in desert earth. It was hideous, but I felt no pain.

“You peed on me?” I asked. As far as I knew, that was the only way to aid a jelly fish sting outside of a hospital.

He chuckled. “What? Is that what you do?”

“Well, it’s not what _I_ do but it’s – wait, what did you do then?”

“I touched it.”

I stared at him, waiting for him to elaborate.

“My skin secretes a chemical that protects me from jelly fish stings,” he explained, “All mermaids have it.”

I rolled my eyes. He peed on me and he was being a dick about it. “Is this a joke to you?”

In response he shook his head. He gestured behind him, as he eased himself out of the water. He struggled scooting up the sand, and a moment later I understood why.

“What the fuck!” I’d screamed, gawking at his luminescent, silvery tail as it flopped against the wet shore. Upon further inspection, the gills flapping shut on his neck became apparent too.

“Sorry, if my tail startled you. I would have left but I wanted to make sure you’d wake up.”

A moment passed as my heart settled. I was probably still in shock. All I could do at first was blink, but finally I said, “Oh…um, it’s okay?”

“I thought humans had skin like mine, but I guess not, huh?”

I huffed out a humorless laugh. “Yeah, you could say that. Are you – okay, so…”

“Yeah, we’re real.”

“Oh,” I replied, “Okay?”

“I’m Marco.” He smiled at me, and he looked so happy to be talking to me that I didn’t mind if he existed. In fact, I was glad he did.

“Jean.”

We’d spent the entire day on the island. Mostly, I asked him questions and he explained them to me while his tail swirled around in the shallow bay of the island. No, not all mermaids hated humans. Mermaids hated humans that colonized land that didn’t belong to them, or polluted waters they didn’t live in, or overfished animals that were sacred in their culture.

So, in conclusion, they hated most men that had ever come in contact with the ocean.

And no, mermaids didn’t swim around seducing sailors so that they could sink ships and kill them. “Well, some probably do,” Marco had chuckled in response to my question, “but I don’t know what their problem is.”

When it had been time for me to swim back – it was dusk, and I couldn’t swim in the dark – I’d asked Marco if I could see him again. He’d hesitated, for the first time since I’d met him looking anxious. “I’m not really supposed to form relationships with humans,” he explained, “but only because it risks our exposure.” He’d explained earlier that they lived deep in the depths of the ocean to avoid contact with humans, because they feared being hunted. Which, I’d admitted, was probably a fair thing to fear. “But…you’re not like other humans.”

“How so?” 

He’d shrugged. “Because you won’t want to tell people about me. It’s not in your nature.”

“How do you know?”

“Because you hate people as much as mer hate people.”

He was right. During our conversation, Marco asked questions about the surface. I’d brushed over a lot of details, sighing often and telling him not to get his hopes up. Looking back, I didn’t know if I’d said a single positive thing about life on the ground – other than I lived near the ocean, and could swim whenever I wanted. He asked me if people that lived further inland could swim, and I explained public pools and baths to him, which he found fascinating. Especially the concept of bubble bath, which he insisted must be impossible because bubbles popped and you couldn’t possibly store them in a bottle.

“I know you won’t tell.” It wasn’t a question, but it wasn’t a threat either. He just trusted I wouldn’t, and I didn’t. He swam behind me back to the shore, insuring I reached the coast safely. Then I met him there every morning and evening for the rest of the summer and throughout September.

Until the day he explained to me, “Winter’s coming. I have to migrate back home.”

“Home?”

“I believe it’s near the land you’d call Haiti. Or Jamaica. Somewhere in there.” That explained his accent. “I’ll be back when the water is warm in the north again.”

He’d kissed me, and I’d learned all the reasons sailors warned each other about Mermaids, because he’d given me one kiss and I knew I’d never kiss another pair of lips again, even if that was the last kiss I’d ever be given.

Then he’d gone, disappearing into the ocean, nothing but a flash of silver.

Now, I rested a hand against my chest. Underneath my wetsuit was the only bit of evidence I had that he existed.

Until the sun rose, and the sky faded from orange to pink to blue, and the glare off the waves sparkled silver.

A gasp, a laugh, and then a musical voice.

“Jean!”

My heart sang at the sight of him, and I inhaled like I’d been drowning all winter and my head had only just broken the surface. I rushed into the shallow waves, and Marco wrapped me in his arms. Underneath the water, he kissed me, and he kissed me under there for so long, supplying me with the breath I needed with each open-mouthed kiss.

The dreams I’d had since I was little were made reality by him.

We sat up. “I came home early. I missed you too much.”

His body was shivering, his skin was tight. I stroked his back and arms with my hands creating friction.

“You’re cold.”

“Freezing,” he sputtered, through chattering teeth. “But I’ll get used to it.” 

I laughed, but interrupted myself with a gasp because I had an idea.

“What if,” I began, “You came home with me for a while? Just a day or two.”

“Where would I go?” he asked, gazing at the land with the same wonder I had the first time I saw the ocean.

“I have a hot tub in my backyard.” He knew what that was, I’d explained it to him last summer. “And a fence. No one would see you. I could fill the bed of my truck with water,” and to this, his eyebrows knitted, because I hadn’t explained cars to him in any great detail. “Never mind. I have a way to get you home. Want to come?”

His eyes widened. He nodded, before dunking my head under the water to kiss me some more.


	2. Chapter 2

The hot tub had been too hot for him at first, so he had to lie flat in the bed of my truck while I adjusted the temperature and it cooled down. The hot tub sat twelve people, so it wasn’t _small_ exactly, but I still wished I had a pool for him. At least he could swim back and forth in that, or something.

Marco peered over the edge of my truck at the hot tub now. I’d driven my truck down the back alley behind my house, and the boarded fence surrounding my house had two gate doors that when opened were wide enough for my truck to drive through. So I’d parked my truck on the lawn of my backyard, closed the gate, and Marco had finally been able to sit up. 

“How’s it look?” I asked him, gesturing to the tub. He quirked his head at it. 

“Is it deep?”

“Like… three-ish feet deep.”

“What?” His eyebrows furrowed at me. Mermaids didn’t have the same units of measurement, apparently.

“Uh…It goes to like here on me when I sit,” I said, placing my thumb at my chest. 

It was already almost six PM, so really, he only had to spend one night in the tub if he wanted. We’d spent the morning on the beach, and at around noon I’d left to drive home and line the bed of my truck with a tarp and fill it with water, which had taken a while. Both the drive there and back had been slow, because I didn’t want to spill the water by sloshing it around too much or jostle him, and we’d only gotten here an hour ago. 

“Can I lay flat in it?” he asked now.

I glanced into it. The tub itself was rectangular and longer. A single step circled the tub, meant for sitting. I thought in the middle, he’d probably be able to.

“Your tail might have to curl.”

“That’s fine. I sleep on my side.” I smiled at that. Sometimes he sounded so ordinary.

I stuck my hand in the water, wiggling my fingers and creating rivulets. 

“I think it’s cooled down. You ready?”

He beamed from the bed of the truck and sunk below the hatch door to peer over it at me. His eyes crinkled into crescents he was smiling so wide. 

“I’m going to carry you,” I said, as I approached the back of the truck. “I have to spill the water first.”

This made Marco tense, and he glanced around himself. I’d seen him resting on rocks and sand before, without his tailing being in water, but he was never far and the grassy lawn was foreign to him. He stared at it now.

“It looks sharp, but it’s not. See?” I said, stomping on the grass with my barefoot. He nodded at me, but didn’t look appeased. “I’m not gonna drop you.”

“Okay,” he said. 

“Back up,” I said, and he swooshed to the other side. I dropped the door and the water flooded out, drenching my wetsuit and lawn. Grass and mud stuck to my feet, and I used my toes to scratch it off because it was already itchy.

The water had pulled Marco with it like the tide and he flowed right into my arms. One hand supported his back, the other his tail, and I lifted him even though every inch of him was slippery. He held on to me, and his body was shaking with the sensation of being surrounded by air. 

At my hot tub, I let him dip his fins at the end of his tail where his feet would be into the water. He nodded that it wasn’t too hot, and smiled because, “It’s so much warmer than the ocean.” He sunk in. Underneath the water, he swirled around once in circle, hugging his tail to his chest the way I would my knees. He looked fucking adorable and by the time he sprouted through the surface I was blushing.

“Well?” I asked. “Will it be okay for the night?”

“Better than being in the cold ocean alone.” 

“You realize I can’t sleep in there with you right?”

He looked utterly offended. “What? Why not?”

“Because I can’t – well, I could fall in and then I’d choke. But I can’t get comfortable either…” It physically hurt the way holding my breath for a little too long did to let him down.

He frowned.

“I’ll stay up late, okay?”

He nodded, but continued to pout. 

“How ‘bout I make human food?” I asked. I’d told him often about the food we ate, and he’d wanted to try some.

“No fish?” 

“I don’t eat fish,” I said, even though I used to, before meeting him. Since I met him I couldn’t even look at tuna the same way. Apparently, eating tuna was like a capital offense to them.

Marco smiled. “Okay.”

So I made dinner. I decided that virtually anything I made for him would seem gourmet, but figured I should probably still avoid meat. After pre-heating my oven, I stuck in a frozen cheese pizza. Twenty minutes later, I was cutting it into eighths and sliding half of it onto one plate and half on the other. 

As I stepped out onto my patio, I said to him, “This is pizza.”

Marco’s nostrils flared. He took the plate from me, before I stepped into the hot tub beside him. Holding my plate above my head, I eased down so that I could sit. The water was warm, more like a bath than a hot tub. 

As soon as he bit in, a high pitched note escaped his voice and he continued humming softly while he ate. “This…is…amazing.”

“It’s not even the good shit,” I told him. “I’d order pizza but I’d be too afraid of the pizza man seeing you.”

“The who?” he asked. So, I explained ordering pizza to him, and he replied, “You can just command people to bring you this? Whenever you _want_?”

I snorted as I ate, tilting my head back to catch a string of cheese. “Well, not exactly, but…sorta.”

It was then that I realized Marco’s plate had sunk into the water, nearly dipping his pizza under the water and I lunged for it. I lifted it up, ensuring the pizza’s survival. “Human food usually isn’t waterproof.”

“Water-what?” 

I laughed again. He had so much to learn. “Don’t get your food wet, okay?”

“Okay.”

Marco finished his pizza, continuing that musical hum, and I remembered the time I nearly drowned underneath the water. I had thought he was an angel, because he’d sounded like heaven.

“Can all mermaids sing?” I asked.

He looked confused, and he licked the tips of his fingers. “What do you mean? You can’t?”

“I mean, I _can_. But I can’t sing _well_.”

He shook his head, like he still wasn’t understanding. “Sing.”

“Fuck no!” I blurted. 

“Why not? Are you sick?”

“I just don’t sing.” 

Marco’s eyes widened. “ _Ever_ ?”

I shook my head. 

Marco pressed a hand against his chest like it suddenly occurred to him this world might be scary. Like the horizon line had been covered in dark stormy clouds and thunder had clapped.

“That’s so sad,” he whispered. “In the ocean, if someone stops singing it’s because they’re depressed. If a mermaid stops singing we assume they’re suicidal. Then…we sing to them to make them feel better.” 

My eyebrows shot up. “Oh my God! I had no idea.”

“Oh your what?” he asked, just as soon snapping out of his distant gaze and staring at me like I was a puzzle.

“Never mind. I’ll sing, okay? I’m just a bad singer.”

“I don’t understand.”

To show him, I began singing _You are my Sunshine_ and he cringed and sunk under the water. It took him a moment to rise back up, and when he did, only brown eyes peered at me. 

Finally, when he was certain I’d finished, the rest of him rose up. “Did you hurt your vocal cords?”

I laughed. “No. It’s just…not all humans can sing well.”

“I didn’t know it was possible to sing badly.” 

“Well, it is,” I said, gesturing to myself.

He scooted so that he was sitting next to me again, and his tail flopped into my lap. My hands slid over the silvery scales. They glistened under the low light. The sun had begun to rise. A shiver ran down my spine. My toes and fingers had begun to prune but at least my wetsuit kept me from freezing.

It was getting late, though, and soon I’d have to sit on the ledge to keep warm. 

Something pricked at the back of my neck, as I realized I was forgetting to do something tonight that I normally did around this time.

“Oh!” Marco jumped beside me. His eyes had been shut, and he’d worn a gentle smile. One of his arms swished back and forth in the water, the other tangled in his black undercut.

“Hmmm?”

“I have to feed my turtle. I’ll be right –”

Marco flung up into a sitting position, splashing the water into a little typhoon as his hands gripped on to my shoulders. “You have a turtle?!” 

Minutes later, I was carrying Rose out onto the patio and into the hot tub with me. She was slightly bigger than my hand, and her body retreated into her shell as I brought her somewhere she hadn’t been. 

“She’s shy,” I said.

But Marco began singing, low, almost a whisper and rose unfurled from her shell. Marco held out his hands and I placed her in them while he kept singing. In front of him she swam in small circles, never straying too far from him. She liked him. By the time he was done singing, she’d swum into his palm again, curling into her shell to sleep.

“Was that a lullaby?” I asked. Even I felt drowsy. I couldn’t remember the last time all my body had felt such peace within the water, like my body was weightless and the tub was filled with mist.

Marco nodded. “I love her.”

“Me too,” I said, chuckling. His fingers tip-toed over her shell, studying the designs in it. 

“Sea turtles are sacred,” he explained, “So we respect all their relatives.”

“What other animals are sacred?” 

“Tuna, dolphin, octopi, and crab. But that’s just my colony. Other mermaids other places cherish other animals. It depends.” 

“There are…separate, like, civilizations of mermaids?” 

“I’m sorry…is that one of those things humans don’t have? Okay, so, a colony is –”

I cut him off. “No we have it. I guess I just assumed you wouldn’t.”

He shook his head. “There are fifty million mermaids, roughly. We grow every year. There are arctic mermaids, in the north and south. They worship penguins and they can’t go on land at all. They have to stay below the surface. They can’t even breathe air.”

My eyebrows shot up as I listened to him. A whole other world existed below the water and humans didn’t have a clue. What else existed that we couldn’t see? At this point, I could believe anything.

“There are migratory mermaids, like my colony,” he explained, “but a small population of mermaids live in the great barrier reefs. They worship coral. We sing for them, every night, because they’re dying. The water is too warm and they aren’t like my colony. Home is home. They won’t – can’t leave.”

I frowned. Marco shed a tear, but wiped it away just as quick. I only now understood that singing was much more for them than something that sounded pretty.

“And there are nomadic mermaids. They go anywhere, but usually stray away from the arctic. Technically, I’m a nomadic mermaid. My family disappeared when I was young. Fishing, I assume. I don’t know. But a group of mermaids with turquois tails that matched the Caribbean waters found me. I knew who they were, we’d spent a time with them. And they took me in,” As an afterthought, as if suddenly realizing what we’d been talking about, he said, “Oh. They worship whales, sharks and manatees.” 

“Hey,” I whispered, and turned to face him in the tub. I cupped one of his freckled cheeks so that I could pull him into a kiss. 

“It’s okay,” I whispered, “I don’t have parents either. I’m adopted. I moved here a few years ago because I learned my biological parents were from here.”

Although I didn’t hurt over the loss of my parents the way Marco did, it seemed to comfort him that I knew what it was like to have lost my history. Marco kissed me for a long time after that. I hadn’t kissed him so slowly before, so gently, and I wiped another tear away. 

After that, we busied each other with random facts about the land and ocean. It kept us distracted, and again that night Marco laughed, and sang, and swirled around underwater in excitement. 

When he popped up from the water, he said, “My whole colony warned me about you. Told me humans and mer don’t mix. But I know that my parents, my home colony never have felt that way. They always…felt a kinship with humans that somewhere down the line had been disrupted. They told me that one day, they hoped we’d rekindle that.”

“So, what you’re saying is, your parents would approve of me?” I asked. He sputtered, blushing before he spit water at me. Then he dunked me, and underneath the water he laughed, sending a school of bubbles to the surface. 

Night came, and Rose and I had to retreat inside. I kissed Marco good night.

“I’ll be up at dawn, okay? I won’t be gone long.”

Marco nodded. His eyelids were heavy as he sunk to the bottom of the tub to sleep.

That night, I dreamed of breathing underwater like I always did. But in this dream, I had a golden tail, gills, and Marco’s hand to hold as we swam.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter Jean wakes up to a miracle, yet a miracle Marco never asked for.

The rain pouring on the roof was background static to the sound of a scream being torn in half. I leapt out of bed, nearly screaming myself because the sound had yanked me from sleep and I had no idea what was happening. Only seconds later, when I processed the thunder and my heart stopped raging had I figured out who the only other person within hearing range of my bed was. 

Marco.

I sprinted through my house, flew open the patio door and nearly flung myself into the tub to see the issue. 

But the moment my eyes laid on the tub I knew. The water was flowing over the edge, and Marco was clinging to the lip of it like he might drown.

Because he had legs. 

I shook my head, rubbed my eyes, squinted through the pouring rain as Marco wailed, trying to make sure my vision hadn’t lied to me.

But there, in the overflowing hot tub, floated two limp, long brown legs. 

“What happened?” I yelled. A clap of thunder shook the sky and Marco wailed, covering his ears. He’d never been in a storm before. Every storm he’d ever experienced had been from below the surface. He was terrified. Like a deer looking a hunter in the eyes, he thought he was about to die, he was so terrified.

I stopped caring about the legs. I dunked nearly half my body into the water so that I could scoop him out of it. His arms hooked around my shoulders in a vice grip, and his legs remained lifeless. After that I scurried into my dining room, slamming the door behind me, and carrying him through my house into my living room. As gently as I could manage, I laid him out on the couch. 

I knelt beside his head on the floor. My hand cupped his cheek as he cried. His whole body was shaking.

“Marco?” I asked, “What happened to your tail?”

I’d assumed he’d know. This would just be some naturally occurring thing that happened to mermaids or something, and he’d explain it to me, and I’d take it as fact even if it didn’t make sense because what the fuck did I know about mermaids?

But when he looked in my eyes, his pupils shrunk and he shook his head. The storm hadn’t frightened him. Not like losing his tail did.

“You don’t know?” 

He shook his head. 

I glanced at his legs. They were too thin for his body. An inch or two too long, out of proportion. Most his body had freckles here and there, but his legs didn’t. They were hairless too. 

“Can you move them?” 

“I think so.”

“Have you tried?” 

He nodded. “They don’t – I can’t move them like I move my tail.”

That made sense. I didn’t know what it was like to have a tail, but even when I swam my body didn’t mimic a tail very often.

I scooted to the other end of the couch. My hand rested against his foot. “Can you feel that?” 

He nodded. My hand roamed to his calf. “And that?”

Another nod.

Finally, it slid up to his thigh.

Marco nodded again.

Then I pulled my hand away, because uh, in the process of him fearing for his life and me panicking that he had legs, I’d somehow not realized he was naked. I looked away. Marco didn’t understand. He wouldn’t know that his body below the waist was private, something he would normally cover up unless giving someone permission. He hadn’t given me permission, or even known that he would have to.

I blushed, but scooted up the floor near his head and shoulders again. Marco crossed his arms over his chest. His body was shivering because he was drenched with water in an air-conditioned house.

“I have to go to the ocean,” he said, “Right now. I need help.”

I winced, and ran my fingers through his hair. “The storm – it’s not a good idea to drive in whether like this.”

Marco hoisted himself up using nothing but his arms, until he was in a sitting position. “But I have to! Jean what – I could be stuck like this! I need to get my tail back!”

Part of me wanted to say _would that be so bad? What would be wrong with being a human permanently? Why not stay on land with me? Why not never leave me again for months on end? Why not live our life together?_ It hurt that he didn’t see this the way I would see it if I up and grew a tail. Because I’d always pick the world we got to be together in. 

But Marco and I were different in many ways. Unlike me, Marco loved who he was. 

So I didn’t say what I wanted to say, I said what I had to. 

“I know, Marco. I know. But if we drove in this rain we could crash. One of us could get electrocuted on the beach.” 

Marco’s eyebrows furrowed. 

“The lightning,” I explained, “Could electrocute you.”

Now I lifted up my shirt to show him my scar. Almost like a reflex, he reached out to run his hand along it.

“Remember? But if you get electrocuted by lightning you’re dead. There’s no coming back from that.”

Marco’s features softened. A tear fell from his eye and he looked into mine. “Mermaids aren’t supposed to cry. But I always have.”

I wiped his cheek and knelt down to kiss him. “We’ll go back to the beach as soon as it stops raining.”

“Okay.”

“You’re cold,” I said.

He smiled, despite himself. “Freezing.”

“Let’s get you warmed up.”

I carried Marco into the bathroom and sat him down on the floor. 

“This is a tub,” I said, pointing at it. “It’s like a smaller, less cool version of a hot tub.”

Marco’s eyebrows furrowed, momentarily distracted from all his worries as I turned the handle to hot and water spewed out of the spout.

“It makes water?” Marco gasped, scooting closer to the edge of the tub as I plugged the drain.

“Well, no. It’s uh…plumbing. The water comes from somewhere else.”

“How?”

He had so many questions, and I was only just beginning to learn that I knew very little about how my own world worked. “I don’t know. It’s someone else’s job to worry about that.”

Marco pursed his lips, but didn’t respond as the tub filled with steaming water. I opened up the cabinet underneath my sink and pulled out a huge pink bottle, my own strawberry-scented guilty pleasure.

“This is bubble bath. Remember?” 

He looked at me, wearing a face like you-can’t-fool-me. 

“Watch,” I said, as I unsnapped the cap and squirted pink soap into the stream of water. Bubbles sprouted along the surface of the water, bloating across the surface and clinging to the edges of the tub. Marco’s eyes widened as they flicked between the bubbles on the water and the soap draining from the bottle. He reached into the tub and scooped up some of the bubbles, before huffing out a breath and blowing the bubbles in the air around us.

“You want in?” I asked.

He nodded. I got the sense that he felt uncomfortable outside of the water. He’d been squirming, shifting on the tile trying to get comfortable on the hard floor and in the weightless air. Bending down, I scooped him up again before gently placing him into the tub. Marco hissed.

“It’s hot,” he said.

“Too hot?” 

He shook his head. “The rain was so cold.”

Marco hugged the bubbles to his chest and spread them all over his body while I sat nearby. A couple of times he slipped his head underneath the water, and involuntarily bent his legs. Unable to push back up with his heels, he struggled to push himself out of the water with just his arms. As soon as his head broke the surface he gasped, pressing a hand against his chest.

“That – that hurts,” he said, pointing at the water. “I can’t breathe. And it hurts.”

“I know. I’ve always wanted to breathe under water.”

Marco looked up at me like he pitied me, and then stared at his reflection in a portion of water that hadn’t been buried beneath bubbles. His hands swished back and forth, creating rivulets. Then he hummed, but it was like trying to start an old lawnmower. He barely got a note out before his head jerked back, and he tried again. After a few failed attempts, he opened his mouth to sing. 

The first note scratched against my eardrum. I winced.

Marco’s jaw dropped. His hands trembled. He stared into the water like he was looking over the edge of a cliff.

“I can’t sing.”

I reached for him, pulling his hand into mine. His body didn’t react. His arm was limp. 

“I can’t sing,” he repeated. 

“Hey, hey,” I started, scrambling to come up with a distraction. “Are you warm enough? We should get to bed, it’s late.”

“I can’t sing.” This time it was a sob. He hadn’t reacted to me at all. His hand covered his mouth and he shook his head. I decided I couldn’t wait for him to be ready. I reached for the plug in the tub to drain the water. Then I lifted him out, pulling his lifeless body into my arms.

In my bedroom, even though Marco’s body was still soaked I placed him on my bed. Running back into the bathroom, I grabbed a towel out of the linen closet. Finally, I wrapped the towel around his shoulders and he snapped out of it.

“I’ve never dried off before,” he said, huffing out a humorless laugh. At least he began pressing the towel against his wet skin.

“You can wear my clothes tonight,” I said, stepping up to my closet and opening the door.

“Your what?” 

I gestured to my own sweats that I was wearing now. I’d have to change. During the whole process of getting him out of both the tubs, I’d gotten soaked too.

“Do I have to?” he asked.

“It would be very weird for you not to.”

“So?” 

I turned to face him. He wore such an innocent expression, I almost said _fuck it_. But I knew I couldn’t trust myself not to take advantage of the view for much longer. For all the time that I had known him, his chest and arms had been distraction enough, let alone the rest of him. He might be innocent, but I sure as hell wasn’t and I wanted him.

I explained clothes to him. Even taking a moment to tell him that I shouldn’t have seen all of his body like this today. 

“Really?” 

“Yeah.”

Marco pursed his lips, looking adorably confused, but nodded. “If you say so.”

I tossed him a pair of pajama bottoms and one of my tank-tops to sleep in. He picked them up, turning them upside down and inside out while examining them.

“Here,” I said. I took the tank-top from him and told him to lift his arms. He did. Then I pulled the shirt down over his shoulders. Marco squirmed a bit once more, and his fingers curled in the fabric. He cocked his head at it, but said nothing. Then I took the pants from him. Since he still hadn’t moved his legs, I had to pull them on for him a leg at a time. I lifted his waist up so that I could pull the pants up underneath his butt. I did this all while trying to look anywhere but his body. He was warm, and his skin was smooth, and all I wanted to do was undress him again. Pull him close to me. Make him feel good. My eyes nearly rolled back at the thought that I’d probably be the first to do it with him. I’d probably be the first person to ever make him come. 

God, I had to stop. Blood was rushing and my knees had gone weak. The last thing I wanted to explain to him tonight was what an erection was. 

Which reminded me: I’d have to explain a toilet to him and how to use it.

Any awkward boner I might have had vanished.

For now, he was dressed and it was time for bed. 

“There,” I said, gesturing to him completely dressed. I turned away from him to change myself. He wouldn’t think anything of my body, probably, so I didn’t hesitate to strip to my boxers and pull on new pajamas. When I turned around, he’d been watching me. He looked both fascinated and dazed.

“What?” 

“Nothing,” he blurted, looking away from me right away. 

I crawled into the bed beside him.

“This is where you sleep?” he asked. “On this thing?”

“It’s a bed.” 

“Oh. We have sand beds.” 

Marco lay down, and I showed him that the comforter pulled over him. He eyed the heavy blanket like he didn’t trust it, but after sparing me a glance to double-check, decided to trust me.

“Comfy?” I asked.

“It’s…” He squinted at the ceiling. His body was stiff, like he was laying on cement instead of a mattress. “Different.”

“Sorry.”

Marco’s body eventually relaxed. I reached for my nightstand to turn the light off. Rain pinged against the window. A streetlight glowed just beyond the glass. The shadows of droplets sliding down the glass danced on Marco’s cheeks, like the ghosts of tears. I knew he was terrified. I knew he was still thinking about singing, and heartbroken he couldn’t. I knew he was worried he’d have to be in this body forever, and even though I loved him and even though I wanted him to be with me forever, I could never trade his tail for his unhappiness.

In the darkness I reached for him. I pulled him by his waist close to me, wrapping my arm around him and pressing my lips against his shoulder.

“This is called spooning,” I told him.

“We do this in the ocean too.” He laughed. 

“Have you done it with other, uh…mermaids?” Jealousy pinched inside of me, even though I had no right. I’d done this with a half-dozen other people before.

“Not like this.”

Kissing his neck, I smiled at that. 

I was just becoming drowsy enough to sleep. Just becoming relaxed enough to forget about tonight’s events for a short while. Just becoming so content, and warm, and happy with his human body pressed against me, that I curled closer to him. All of me to all of him.

Including my feet to his feet.

My toes brushed against the arch of Marco’s feet. A squeal jumped out of his throat and his knees shot right into his chest.

“Oh my God,” I said, lifting the blanket up to get a look at his legs. He hugged them against his stomach, but he’d moved them up there himself. “You can move them!”

Marco glanced down at himself, apparently as shocked as I was. Then he turned to face me. “What was that? That – that weird feeling?”

I snorted before answering, “I accidentally tickled you. I guess you’re… _really_ ticklish.”

Marco’s eyebrows furrowed. “I don’t like it.”

“I won’t do it again.” 

“Okay.”

Marco turned away from me, like he was ready to try to sleep, but I hugged him to my chest again. Pressing a bit at the top of his thighs, Marco’s legs stretched out. It took a moment longer than it should have, but he moved them. 

“That’s so…I like it. I like moving them.”

I grinned, ignoring the waves of hope rolling in my chest. Convincing him to stay human shouldn’t be on my mind. Getting his tail back should be. Just because this had happened didn’t mean he didn’t want to be a mermaid anymore.

Despite myself, I leaned in close to his ear. “Tomorrow, I’ll teach you how to walk.”

Marco smiled and I felt the way he did when he sang. “I’ve always dreamed of walking on two feet.” 

“Tomorrow.” I repeated once out loud, and then in my head several more times. Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow I would know what it was like to be with him. To really be with him the way we would be if life were fair and we were both human. 

But when I fell asleep, I dreamed of something better. Marco and I walking hand-in-hand on the beach, the two of us kicking up sand and letting the water swirl around our toes. Then the two of us dived in, and by the time the waves soared over, we both had tails. Mine gold again, his silver, and we swam away still hand-in-hand.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter, Jean teaches Marco to walk, just in time for them to go home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for being so patient! I know this one took a while to get updated.

I woke up first. For one blissful moment, I forgot nearly everything about my life and especially everything that happened the night before. In that instant of time, all that mattered was that Marco, the warmest, sexiest, loveliest fucking being in the entire world probably, lay next to me in bed. And he had legs. As if everything about my life was ordinary, going exactly as planned but infinitely better because I could have never, in a hundred thousand years, anticipated falling for anyone else as hard as I had for him. Then he woke up too.

“Jean?” he breathed, glancing down. “Something’s wrong.”

I tensed in bed, and glanced down, worried he’d grown his tail back. But no, Marco and I both had morning wood. I had to try not to stare at his. And try not to laugh at the situation. Plus, I knew there was no way he didn’t have to go to the bathroom by now. And before he had an accident, and I had to experience the most awkward situation that could possibly happen, I’d have to teach him how to use a toilet.

Somehow, that didn’t shake my happiness. I chuckled. “Nothing’s wrong. That’s normal, unfortunately. Here, I’ll help you out of bed.”

I carried him out of bed right to the bathroom. Then I proceeded to teach him everything he needed to know while staring at the wall as much as possible. Thankfully, everything went smoothly. Other than all of Marco’s awkward questions and his unbearable innocence. 

After, I carried him out into the living room. “Ready to learn how to walk?” I asked him, after I set him down on the couch. 

He looked up at me with wide brown eyes. They were filled with so many emotions – curiosity, fear, wonder, worry, excitement – I couldn’t even name them all. “You think I’ll be able to?” he asked.

I glanced at his legs. They were so thin. But I didn’t think they could possibly be weak. They had to have always been a part of him, right? He couldn’t have just… _grown_ legs. Somehow, they had to have been inside of his tail. Which meant, to some degree, they were used for labor. Just not walking. Didn’t I hear once that swimmers were bad at running? But it wasn’t like swimmers couldn’t fucking walk at all.

“Of course you can. If toddlers can do it, so can you.”

He seemed to contemplate this for a moment, but smiled. Now he had a certain determination in his eye. I knew he could do it. Not because logically he should be able to, but because he was Marco.

“Here, give me your hands,” I said. He placed his hands in mine. “The most important thing is to balance yourself. You don’t want to tip over, so you have to put equal weight on both feet.” Might as well teach him how to stand first.

A second later, I swung him up onto his feet. Before he could fall, I placed my hands on his waist so that he wouldn’t. He struggled for a minute. Trying to find footing, he got used to his own weight. Slowly, I eased my hands away from his waist. Not making any sudden movements, I stepped away from him. He wobbled, threw his arms out instinctively to balance himself, but didn’t fall.

“Okay. Now, when you lift one leg, you put all your weight on the other. And you just put the leg you lifted in front of you. Then the weight goes on that leg.” I had no idea if this made any sense to him, so while I spoke I took a few steps. When I pointed at my feet while walking, so slow I actually had to try to stay balanced, he nodded. “If you do it fast, you won’t really have to balance. Just don’t lean too far forward or backward. Okay?”

He nodded. “Hold my hands?”

I reached out to him. Again, his hands slid into mine. Just as I said, he lifted one leg while leaning on the other. Then did it again on the opposite leg. He wobbled some more, and struggled not to lean into me. But by the tenth step, it felt more like we were slow dancing than teaching him how to walk. I held him close, even though he didn’t need me anymore. Our bodies moved together, naturally, independently, yet surrounding each other. This is what it would be like if we lived together. We’d take up the same space. Keep each other company, keep each other warm. I never wanted to let go. 

An hour passed. I switched between holding his hands and resting my hands on his waist. Teaching him to pivot on one foot, then the other. Eventually, I could hardly believe I’d had to carry him to the couch that morning. He was a natural. Sure, he couldn’t run yet or walk backwards. But, basically, no one would be able to tell he’d never walked before.

A spark of hope flew through my chest. He smiled so much throughout all of this. Really, he wanted to learn. And why else would he want so badly to be able to walk, if he didn’t intend to keep walking? Had this convinced him?

He slumped into the couch and rested his head against the armrest. “I’m exhausted.”

I smiled. Later, I’d ask him if he’d changed his mind. Later, I’d try to convince him again. But right now, it rained. I still had my excuse. And in any case, he didn’t look like he was in a rush to go anywhere. Sitting beside him on the couch, I flipped the TV on. 

Marco’s eyes widened. He leaned forward in his seat, awed by the TV screen. As if he’d seen someone fly or materialize in thin air. To him, the TV looked like magic. How he had always looked to me. 

“It’s a TV. We watch…like, people act things out.”

“Like plays?” he asked, still staring at the screen.

“Yeah, but it’s recorded.” I briefly explained cameras to him as best I could. Thankfully, he didn’t care too much about the _how_ as much as the what. So I flipped through channels for him. Some of the shows I explained, some of them I hurried past. They’d be too violent or shocking for him. Finally, I landed on a channel I figured _had_ to be safe. Disney channel. _Lilo and Stitch_ – at least, one of the more tolerable Disney movies – was on. I couldn’t really tell how far into the movie it was, but Marco was already enraptured. He watched Lilo and her sister and her sister’s boyfriend surfing with Stitch while music played.

“Hawaii. I’ve been there,” he said, staring wide-eyed at the TV.

“Yeah?” I asked, “I’ve always wanted to go.”

“I go there every winter on my way down south.” 

I smiled. He hadn’t taken his eyes off the screen. 

“I’ve seen people surfing,” he said. “And hula dancing.”

“We could go, you know,” I said. My voice trembled. My attempt to be subtle hadn’t really worked. It was clear in my voice his response mattered too much to me. But I could picture it – us flying to Hawaii. What would Marco think of a plane? He’d be completely mesmerized. Then us swimming on the beaches. He’d be an amazing swimmer by then – maybe he already was. His legs knew how to move in the water even if they were normally covered by a tail. I’d buy a boat and take him sailing. And he’d love the heat. He’d love being surrounded by the ocean – so close to his home already. It’d be like nothing had changed. Except that we could always be together. 

“How would you get there?” he asked.

My heart sunk in my chest. It hadn’t even occurred to him what I meant. I stared at my hands, resting in my lap while he hummed with the music on TV. Not the way he used to, but still. 

But after a moment of silence too long between us, he glanced at me. “What’s wrong?”

I turned to face him. He looked so innocent all the time, with his freckles and dimples and big brown eyes. I never wanted to hurt him. Let alone be hurt by him and have to tell him. Have to explain to him that I didn’t want him to be a mermaid. I wanted him to be with me. As if that wasn’t the most selfish thing I could ever ask of him.

“You really don’t want to be with me?” I asked, anyway, “Like…on land? All the time?”

At this, Marco ducked his head. He glanced at _Lilo and Stitch_ , then around the room. I didn’t think he was avoiding eye contact with me. Just, looking at everything around us legs would offer him.

“It’s not that I don’t want to. I wish I could switch back and forth,” he said.

I nodded. “Me too. I wish that all the time.”

“It’s just – it’s who I am. I don’t know who I am without my tail. My colony. The ocean.”

I wanted to say _But you’re Marco! You’ll always be Marco! Nothing could change that, not even me, not even losing your tail._ But I refrained. 

“I love you,” I told him, “I just want to be with you. Whatever it takes.”

He smiled, even though it was saddened. “I love you too. You’ll always have me. Even if this doesn’t turn out how you want.”

I perked my head up. “How I want?”

“You know. You’re hoping I can’t get my tail back.”

My cheeks flared up. Of course he knew. I couldn’t even look at him. I covered my face. “I’m sorry, Marco.”

He kissed me tenderly and slowly, cupping my cheek in his hand as he did. After that, we didn’t speak again. He finished the movie. Giggling, laughing, and humming along with it. He didn’t even ask any questions that were hard for me to explain. 

By then I was hungry and figured he had to be too. I stood up to walk into the kitchen, only to realize I better feed Rose before I forget. Marco followed me – like he’d been walking his whole life – into my sun room where I kept Rose’s tank. Currently, she lay on a long slab of rock covered in soft moss. 

“Hey, girl,” I said as I walked up to her tank.

Marco stood still, staring at her tank with a concerned expression. “She’s…trapped?”

I turned to face him, then looked at the tank again. It hadn’t occurred to me that this would upset him. But now I saw it through his eyes. A water creature held in a see-through cage, unable to swim, unable to find its own food or shelter or mate. I sighed.

“Where else would I keep her, Marco?” I gestured to our surroundings to make my point.

“I guess I didn’t think about that…” He still stared at Rose while I opened up the container with her food in it.

Rose slid into the water as I dropped the food into her tank. Taking a moment to stroke her shell, I looked over my shoulder at Marco. “She’s happy, you know. I give her everything she needs.”

“But…couldn’t you bring her back to the ocean?” he asked. “I’d look after her, you know. For you. She doesn’t belong in there.” He pointed at the tank. I felt relentless guilt now, staring at her. How did I really know if she was happy? Was it right? I never thought about it. All I knew when I bought her was that I wanted a pet that made me feel close to water – the same way swimming did. She was better than a gold fish.

“Sorry. I wish I could. But she’s a freshwater turtle.” That made me feel a little better. What was she really missing out on? Not the fucking ocean. Some pond, probably. Muddy and riddled with weeds. And I loved her and could never let her go.

Marco approached me from behind. He cocked his head at Rose. Sticking his hand in her tank, he stroked her shell too. Unlike the first time he touched her, she didn’t really react. Marco’s eyes pinched. “What do you mean? The ocean isn’t fresh?”

That surprised me. Marco might not even know that there _were_ bodies of water on land. “Well…the ocean is filled with salt water. But she came from a lake on land. It’s like…a much, much, much smaller ocean. But filled with fresh water – which is just water without salt in it. With different animals and fish in it and everything. She can’t survive in salt water.”

Marco didn’t respond. I began to wonder if he heard me, or if he was having trouble processing this. Resting my hand on the small of his back, I turned to face him. 

Marco’s jaw had dropped. His hand had stopped petting rose. He stood so still I felt the urge to snap my fingers. When I looked into his eyes, I saw everything connecting. Something had occurred to him that hadn’t to me. Something monumental.

“Marco?”

His head slowly turned to face me. He finally blinked. “Jean…The hot tub is fresh water. Isn’t it.”

A moment later it dawned on me too. I pivoted on my heel to face the direction the hot tub was outside of my house.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” I said. “You think that’s why…?”

“It has to be.” He shrugged like he couldn’t help it and didn’t care to. “It has to be. What else – My tail must need salt water.”

I cleared my throat. The last thing I wanted to do was agree, but what could I do? Lie to him? God, no. “I think you’re right.”

He turned around to leave the room. “I have to go to the ocean.”

“Marco? Marco,” I called after him, following him down the hall. “It’s still raining. Marco? It’s – I don’t think –”

But he kept walking.

“Marco!”

This time he froze. Turning slowly, he balanced himself on the wall. Then he crossed his arms. I’d never seen him look so serious before. “Yeah?”

“Please.” This time, I didn’t try to find an excuse he wouldn’t fall for. The rain was so light the sun peered through the clouds at some places. There wasn’t any lightning, either. Hardly dangerous. So I begged instead. I placed my hands on his waist. Looked into his eyes. Let out a breath. “Please. Stay with me for one more night. Just so I can have one normal day with you. We’ll go first thing tomorrow. I promise.”

At first he looked like he’d protest, but he must have seen the desperation in my eyes. “Okay.”

I sighed in relief. 

I spent the rest of the day showing him everything I wanted. The microwave, stove, and oven. The fridge, freezer, and canned foods. The dining table. Pizza rolls. Ramen noodles. Hot chocolate. Ice cream. The Play Station. My laptop. Pictures of different cities, landmarks, and animals. Movies. Books. Everything I could think of. 

He loved it all. With every new thing I showed him, he stared at it with awe, completely enveloped in what to him must have felt like fantasy. He told me about the ocean too. They had something like books in the ocean. They had plays, and story tellers, and even charades. They built underwater sand castles and carved furniture out of stone. For everything I shared, he added something, and I felt pulled. Like the ocean tide was tugging me toward it. The moon was urging me to flow with it. I wanted him to stay on land because it seemed possible – not because it was my preference of the two. 

We showered together. I could hardly keep my hands off of him – and to my surprise, he couldn’t either. Both of us got hard with our bodies pressed together and our arms pulling each other even closer. My mouth never left his, despite the water, because I’d rather drown than give this up. 

Marco let me show him more in the shower. He didn’t really know what it was at first – mermaids didn’t reproduce the way humans did. But I explained it to him, through heavy breaths, more kissing, and shivering at the feeling of his skin against mine. He caught on to the basic logistics of it right away – after all, plenty of ocean creatures _did_ reproduce like humans. But I had to explain that it was something humans did when they wanted to be close to each other. Because they loved each other. And they wanted to make the other feel good, and happy. I knew it was more complicated than that for most, of course. But he didn’t need to know. 

“Really?” he breathed.

I nodded as I kissed down his neck.

“Have you done it with others?”

I hesitated. Nodded again.

“Show me.”

Pulling him out of the flow of the shower, I looked him in the eyes. “Are you sure?”

He hesitated. Kissed me. Held my face in both his hands. “This is our only opportunity.”

Hearing those words stung, but I accepted that there was no convincing him. We’d never have this again. A day like this. A life like this.

He waited to see how I’d react. I smiled, mostly to make him feel better, but also because it was okay. It was. Until a few days ago, I didn’t know this was possible. And I’d been okay with it then, because Marco was the love of my life and would be no matter what. No matter what we had to sacrifice to be together. It didn’t matter if we never had this again, because all that mattered was that I had him.

I held his face in my hands too. “Then we better make the best of it,” I breathed. 

And I showed him the last thing I wanted to right then in the shower – in the water and out of the water, just right for us. When we weren’t kissing, he filled the air with his moans, and it sounded just as beautiful to me as his singing always had. I made it last, until the steam from the shower cleared and the water running cold cooled our flushed skin. He couldn’t stop giggling afterward. I couldn’t stop looking at his smile. As I shut the shower off, I kissed him. We climbed into my bed naked, both of us laughing at the contrast this night had from the last. 

But just like the night before, I spooned him until the sun rose.

We got dressed. He was especially excited, saying a hundred words a minute. I smiled a lot and tried, really fucking tried to be happy for him. Once he realized I was faking it, he tried to be more sympathetic. And made out with me for a really long time, which, as he predicted, did make up for it a bit. 

We didn’t even bother to eat. I was already in my suit. Just because he was about to get his tail back or whatever, didn’t mean I wasn’t going to spend the day with him. 

We stepped out the patio door. At first, I didn’t see it. But when I glanced at my hot tub, my eyes widened. Shards of Marco’s remaining tail floated in the water like dead fish. I probably should have guessed that the tail couldn’t simply cease to exist. It had to go somewhere.

And it made me think. There were fish that could run on water and squirrels that could fly and lizards that could make their tails fall off, only to grow it back within a few days. Birds that could speak English and jelly fish without brains and snakes that shed their skin every few months. This planet was filled with magical creatures like Marco. The only difference between them was that scientists hadn’t discovered mermaids and given them an official name yet.

It suddenly seemed perfectly possible that he should not only exist – but be capable of discarding and growing back tails. 

On the way over Marco asked me questions about everything. The car. Driving. Stop lights. Other cars. Pedestrians. Sidewalks. Stores. Stop signs. Horns. More cars. All the way to the beach. I was grateful for that. It kept me distracted. Only when the sand came into view, and the familiar path I took to get to the small bay we always met at across from the lone island, did my stomach start to twist. I glanced at Marco’s legs. He noticed, so he held my hand.

We made the trek down the beach, just like we had in my dream.

“I like the way the sand feels in between my toes,” he said.

Staring at our feet together on the beach, I chuckled. “One of my favorite feelings.”

“I always dream about this,” he said.

Reaching out to him so that I could help him step over a large rock, I perked my head up. “Oh yeah? Me too.”

“Every night. Walking on the beach.”

I smiled at that. It gave me a sense of peace right before the first waves rolled over my feet. Together, we stared at the island. 

“Here,” I said, “Sit down.”

“No. I have to be further in the water.”

I followed him out into the shallow waves. He lay down just as he did in the hot tub. The waves rolled over us. Nothing but our heads peeked out of the water. So many times before, I’d done the exact same thing, always wishing my comforter could be waves instead. 

Marco’s eyebrows furrowed as he glanced at me. “It’s not working.”

Hope pinched in my chest, but I ignored it. “Hey,” I said, leaning in to kiss him. “It took hours for you to lose your tail, right? Give it time.”

He nodded while letting out a long shaky exhale.

After that, we waited. And waited. And waited. The sun sunk down while we waited. The longer we waited, the more anxious Marco looked. Eventually, we both needed to sleep. We couldn’t force our eyes open any longer.

“Marco, we have to go back.”

“I’m not leaving the water.”

“We’ll come back tomorrow and try again.”

He whipped his head to face me. “ _No_ , Jean.”

I didn’t utter another word. We both fell asleep, our heads propped up by mounds of sand so that we wouldn’t drown.

The next time I opened my eyes, I’d slipped underwater. The waves were swirling above me. My jaw dropped, gasping for the air that wasn’t there. All I could think about was the day Marco and I met, the day I nearly drowned because of that jellyfish sting. My hand slid up my chest as I writhed under the water. I felt the scar that had healed from nothing but his touch. My legs were numb. I couldn’t feel them let alone move them. They might as well have not even been there. 

Something was wrapping around them. Swallowing them. I flailed, shoving the heels of my palms in the sand trying to crawl away from the beast that clutched me in its jaw. 

I couldn’t escape.

But then there was nothing to escape from. I couldn’t feel my legs. Yet, I could feel – something. It wasn’t a beast, it couldn’t be. It was part of me. And I wasn’t breathing, but I didn’t need to. The water in my mouth and throat and lungs meant nothing. I felt no discomfort. 

When I opened my eyes, I saw underwater with a clarity I could have never imagined. Even wearing goggles while swimming had never come close to this. It was like the water wasn’t even there. Every rock, every bit of algae, every grain of sand. Everything, I could see. And it no longer felt so foreign. I felt like I belonged here.

Something – someone reached for my wrist, tugging me out of the water. My head emerged, I gasped, even though I hadn’t felt any lack of oxygen.

Marco’s eager expression waited for me to come back to reality. The sun rose behind his head, in a flaming rage of corals over a turquoise ocean. 

“Jean,” Marco said. “Look.”

My eyes followed the line of his arm to where his finger pointed. Below the surface floated two long, metallic fish tails. One silver. One gold. 

And the gold one was mine. My waist faded into the golden scales, creating a beautiful gradient on my skin. There was no point where my human body stopped and my fish tail began. They were one.

I looked up at Marco. “How?”

He grinned. “You’re just like me. You didn’t know either.”

I processed this for a moment. Marco and I were both adopted. We both lived close to the shore our whole lives. We both inexplicably trusted each other’s kind, and felt a tug toward each other’s world. Since I was little, swimming had been more than a hobby or a passion. It had been a necessity to live. Like breathing, I swam. If I went too long without it, my body ached and longed to be surrounded with water. Both of us dreamed of this. All the time. 

I laughed. I couldn’t help it. My eyes widened, because my laugh was musical. And it filled me with such an immense joy that adrenaline flowed through my veins and I thought I would become a child again, swim the entire ocean shore and never ever have to rest again. It felt like being in love, but not just with Marco but with everything I’d ever laid eyes on in my life. I felt whole. And then I laughed so hard I cried. Marco laughed too. We splashed around in the early morning tide, rolling over each other, wrestling, laughing, kissing. 

Kissing underwater – Oh, I could do it forever. Because of our gills, we had no need for our lips to part. 

I looked up at the surface like a ceiling, laying beside Marco. He sung for a long time, and I joined him. It was instinctual. It was just this obvious thing I should do. Almost absent-minded, like biting nails or shaking a leg. Only this channeled happiness not nervs. 

Then, when the sun had finally peaked in the sky, Marco turned to face me.

Underneath the water, he asked – and the water didn’t even drown out his words, “Ready to learn how to swim?”

I laughed. “I already know how to swim.”

Marco gave me a devilish grin. “No. You don’t.”

I arched an eyebrow at him. He leaned in close. Kissed me. “C’mon. We can swim to Hawaii and be back here by night.”

For a moment I was completely consumed by the thought of Hawaii. But then the rest of the sentence entered my brain. “Back?”

He grinned. “Well…we’re obviously going to have to go on land again. I mean, we can’t abandon Rose.”

I smiled so wide my cheeks hurt. I held his face in my hands. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.” He shrugged, as if this was obvious. 

Then he wrapped his hand around my wrist, pointed toward Hawaii, and tugged.

In all my life, I would have never thought swimming could feel like flying.

**Author's Note:**

> If you're curious, my writing-only blog is the-only-one-in-color@tumblr.com.


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